The Nasdaq, whose headquarters in New York City's Time Square is shown here, topped 4,000 points this week for the first time since the year 2000. Andrew Burton/Getty Images

Written by

Matt Krantz
USA Today

But it's a very different Nasdaq than it was 13 years ago, the last time it visited the heady air above 4,000.

Same number. Different world. We've gone through a horrific terrorist attack on 9/11, two wars - one ongoing - two massive bear markets and two recessions. Tech investors in 2000 were right about the possibilities of the Internet and mobile computing. But they were dead wrong about which companies would be in the vanguard and how long those advances would take. ...